Ghost
by AngstyShenko
Summary: How can someone learn to live who was always meant to die? Snapshots of Kaidan Alenko's life. Shout out to tccarty for the idea!
1. Early Years

_**Kaidan**_ (怪談) (sometimes transliterated kwaidan) is a Japanese word consisting of two kanji: 怪 (kai) meaning "strange, mysterious, rare or bewitching apparition" and 談 (dan) meaning "talk" or "recited narrative."

* * *

She heard the news the day she found out she was having a boy. Natsuki Alenko was only 18 weeks along when the extranet was filled with vids of the accident. A transport ship crashed spilling eezo into the environment. Some of it went into the waterways nearby, and some of it seeped into the ground. She thought that she had nothing to worry about living nearly 20 kilometers away. Then she received the letter.

It was addressed from a company called Conatix. She had never heard of them before. They explained in jargon she couldn't entirely understand that the powdered eezo had actually gotten mostly into the air and the winds had blown it in her direction. It hadn't dissipated like they thought it would. "Cancer, tumors, brain damage." Those words she understood as they explained the dangers to a fetus. She told her husband Andrew that day that their baby should be named Kaidan. He solemnly agreed.

She wasn't sure how, but the months passed and Kaidan grew like a normal pregnancy. Every day she wept at the inevitable loss she was going to face. Maybe he would be born, but he could never live like a normal child. He would probably be incapacitated and need constant care and even then for only a few years. Or maybe his poor little infant body would be riddled with tumors and barely live a few hours outside the womb. Or maybe he wouldn't even be healthy enough to take his first breath. Whatever his fate, she blamed herself. If she would have gone to visit her mother like she had promised she would do soon…Her husband just silently watched his wife grieve.

When she felt the first labor pains, her initial reaction was happy excitement. Her husband drove her to the hospital and they reminded her of the possibilities stemming from her eezo exposure. Every wave of pain brought tears. She didn't want to lose him, her little Kaidan. She would have gladly carried him for the rest of her life, never seeing his face, if it meant he would live. But with a great push, a baby boy with a head full of black hair entered the world. He was pale and lifeless. Natsuki saw and let out a great sob.

The nurse scooped up the boy and began her assessment. When the boy began giving off an ethereal blue glow, she put him down on the bed with his mother and backed away. He suddenly gasped and life came to him. He screamed. Natsuki held him close. She didn't care what was causing it or what it meant. Right now he was alive, that blue glow made him alive and she was going to cherish the moment. Andrew stood at a distance, his face blank.

The doctors said the glow was from his eezo exposure attaching itself to his nervous system and to be prepared for the day when Kaidan would be diagnosed with cancer. His parents left the hospital and prepared to move to Vancouver. Maybe getting out of the area would give Kaidan a better, albeit still short, life.

**_Age 3_**

Kaidan sat quietly playing with his blocks. He had been a little feverish all day, but still in good spirits. His mother sat for a moment to watch him. He looked up at her, smiling. "Mama, look." Natsuki heart leapt to her throat as her son began to glow blue like he did the day he was born. Before she could say or do anything, Kaidan threw one of his blocks without using his hands. She made an appointment with the pediatrician right away. The doctor didn't know what to say, but he was still free of any devastating eezo side effects.

Andrew returned later that week from his short deployment to the moon. When she told him about Kaidan's abilities, his face went hard. He looked at the boy and said sternly, "Don't ever do anything like that again. You scare your mother." Kaidan cried and hugged his mother's leg apologetically.

**_Age 5_**

Natsuki and Andrew listened to the teacher intently. "Kaidan is a very bright boy," she said kindly. "But his…_special abilities_ have been…distracting the other children. I hate to say this, but this school may not be the right place for him." She handed them a pamphlet from Conatix. "There is a special school for children like him. They've been popping up all over the world."

When they arrived at home, Kaidan hopped off the babysitter's lap and ran to his parents happily. Andrew stopped him before he could give them a hug. "I told you not to do whatever it is that you can do. Now you've made it so you have to leave your school," his voice rose. "Now we have to pay some outrageous amount of money for you to go to a special school! The Alliance doesn't pay me enough to do this, Kaidan! Why do you have to make it difficult?" Kaidan's eyes welled up, but no tears fell and he walked away quietly.

**_Age 16_**

Kaidan faded into the background of his father's life. He was there when he was summoned, but actual communication was small. His mother was always close, but her love seemed motivated by guilt. He hated both of them and wished he could just be the dead child they seemed to want. The school he went to was no school at all. He got an education, sure. The same as any other child would at any other school, but this one had the added feature of being a scientist's wet dream. Freaks abounded. All eezo-exposed, some showing biotic potential, others just plain crazy.

Kaidan watched the other kids in disgust. He didn't want to be there, so he isolated himself even in a place where there were others like him. One day, a couple of suited adults walked into his class, stopping in front of him. "Hello, Mr. Alenko," said a strikingly beautiful woman. "We are with the Biotics Acclimation and Training facility. We host young people just like you to help you learn your true potential as a biotic. We've been monitoring your progress through this school and we've been impressed. We are extending this invitation to you to become a part of what we believe is humanity's next evolutionary step."

"I don't know…" Kaidan said slowly. "My parents…"

"Have already given their approval," the woman finished. "They want you to be everything you're meant to be. We have state-of-the-art facilities at the Jump Zero station, and we've hired a turian who understands biotic power and how to use it most effectively."

Kaidan finally saw a light at the end of his tunnel. "When would I leave?"

"Tonight," the man said firmly.

"I should leave and pack," Kaidan said as he stood.

"Meet us at the Vancouver International Spaceport at 8. Do not be late." Kaidan felt like he had shimmered back into existence.

**_Age 17_**

The pain in Kaidan's head was relentless. Light was like knives in his brain, and sound was even worse. He stumbled to the infirmary at Brain Camp. He needed help. A kind woman saw him and instantly had a dose of something injected in the back of his neck. Cool fingers of relief reached around his head, easing the ache.

"You got a migraine," she said. "Many L2s have them. We'll be here whenever you need it." He nodded his thanks and walked out. Rahna stood there waiting. She gave him a concerned smile. He wasn't sure if it was just the light or perhaps the drugs, but her beauty seemed to actually radiate a haunting glow.

**_Age 18_**

Rahna was crying, her arm hanging limply at her side. Kaidan couldn't be invisible anymore. He burst into a luminous biotic blaze. "Leave her alone," he said, finding a severe tone he didn't know he had. Vyrnnus just sneered and suddenly drew a blade on Kaidan, holding it to his neck. "Care to see the human afterlife?" he growled. Without thinking, Kaidan threw his leg back toward the turian with all the dark energy he could muster. He heard the sickening crack as Vyrnnus hit the wall. As the biotics wore off, Kaidan could feel his heart pounding. He felt alive.

Kaidan turned to Rahna, her eyes filled with horror. "Get away from me. Don't ever talk to me again. Ever!" she screamed as she ran from the room. Other kids and adults began streaming into the room. Kaidan drifted away in the confusion, and a darkness cloaked his heart.

**_Age 22_**

Natsuki begged Kaidan not to leave the house tonight. She knew what he would do, what he had been doing for years: finding his next fix of red sand to dull the pounding in his head. He had grown too thin, too pale, too broken since BAaT was closed down. She knew he needed an outlet, a place where he could feel accepted, even celebrated for what he was. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked down at the Alliance Navy information. Andrew had strictly forbidden Kaidan from joining. He felt the military life would be another dead end for the young man who couldn't find his place anywhere among normal humans.

"Kaidan, please, just tonight, for me, don't go out," she said softly, and handed him the booklet. "I don't care what your father says, this may be the right choice for you." Kaidan looked at her through sunken eyes, his body already starting to shake from withdrawal. His face broke into a painful grin. "You know what, Mom? I'm going to enlist, just to tell that bastard what I think of him and his fucking rules." Kaidan went to the enlistment office the next day.

The officer looked at his emaciated figure and was about to turn him away when Kaidan showed off his biotic power. "I think we can find a position for you," he said. "The military is branching out with biotic training."

Kaidan came home with his BDUs on, smiling smugly. When Andrew arrived home, he exploded in anger. With a look of satisfaction, the younger Alenko just sat back on the couch and watched his father rage.


	2. Early Alliance Years

**_Age 23_**

Her name was Gemma. She served with Kaidan on the _SSV Tai Shan._ He had gotten plenty of welcome attention from women in boot camp, and Gemma was no different. She was attractive with strawberry blond hair and full lips. He liked to sneak away with her while on duty into the nearby bathroom, and furiously work out their tension. He knew they could be dishonorably discharged if they were caught, but he'd be damned if his father would ever be proven right, and Gemma was good at keeping secrets.

A small contingent of soldiers was sent down to some planet that Kaidan couldn't remember the name of in the Skyllian Verge. A group of batarians was attacking a human agrarian colony. Kaidan was sent for his field medic skills and Gemma for her sharpshooting.

It wasn't long until Kaidan was feverishly attending to the wounded. The group of batarians was fiercer than they had anticipated. Gemma took a defensive position beside him to keep Kaidan free to work. He looked up quickly just to have Gemma push his head down and take a shot directly to the face. She flew back, hitting the wall behind her. Her hair painted a large streak of blood as she slumped down lifelessly.

Numb, Kaidan floated among the injured, which was the remainder of his group. He then grabbed Gemma's sniper rifle and took out the last remaining batarians. A few days later, the Alliance gave him his first commendation for quick action while under fire. All Kaidan ever saw when he looked at that letter was Gemma's face, destroyed by a batarian shot that should have been his.

Andrew Alenko sent a message of congratulations. Kaidan didn't even read it.

**_Age 25_**

Another tour of duty, another commendation. Kaidan thought the Alliance must hand them out like candy to field medics. This time, however, he saved his commanding officer's life by patching a compound fracture in the man's leg which had punctured his femoral artery. This was only after he shut the ship's decon bay doors on a group of colonists that had been infected with an alien pathogen that caused violent tendencies before they would succumb to a painful death.

In his dreams he heard the howling of the colonists as the ship left them to die. Sometimes he would be with them crying out for death to take him. He would awake sweaty and screaming.

He went all out on the shore leave that followed. Kaidan found many willing women to temporarily make him forget. He found a red sand dealer who wouldn't rat him out to the Alliance. (The Alliance was paying dealers high rewards to turn in soldiers who were abusing the drug.) The booze flowed freely as well, especially to a "hero." Kaidan felt like a transparent fraud, but he lived it up with them anyway.

The morning before he had to return to duty he crashed. The drugs, the buzz all wore off. He felt raw and wounded. His matted hair hadn't seen a shower in over a week. He sat up and looked at the sleeping woman lying beside him. He didn't know her name and he didn't care. The money on the nightstand said she didn't care who he was either. He took the last hit of red sand as he stood up.

Kaidan stumbled to get his clothes back on. He picked up his pistol that he always had on him just in case. He carefully examined the gun, turning it over and over in his hands. He started to wonder what a gunshot felt like. What did Gemma feel when she died? Did time stretch out as the bullet bored through her eyeball, exploding it, then crashed into her brain, creating a tunnel of searing destruction before it cracked the back end of her skull, exiting with such force that it removed nearly a third of her head with it?

Kaidan stood there, pistol pointing at his own eye. He could just pull the trigger. The migraines would be gone, the ache of disillusionment would be gone, the spectre of death that hung over him would finally be gone. He could just surrender himself to that inevitability. If he could just pull the trigger…

A woman's scream startled Kaidan into dropping his gun. He looked in horror as he thought about what he almost did. He never touched red sand again.

**_Age 27_**

The structure and tight regulations of the Alliance had become a security blanket to Kaidan after that shore leave two years ago. He no longer flouted the rules, but instead ran his entire life by them, even on shore leave. One day he decided to visit his mother, which he did rarely even when he was home at his own apartment in Vancouver.

He knocked politely at the door and Natsuki opened the door, pulling her son into her arms. "Kaidan, I'm so glad you are home! I'm so proud of the man you've become." Andrew stepped out from behind her. Kaidan flinched. He thought his father was out on another tour of duty. Surprisingly, Andrew smiled at his son. Kaidan couldn't remember the last time he had done that.

"We're both proud of you, son," Andrew said, as Kaidan left his mother's embrace. Andrew held out his hand. "You are a real asset to the Alliance and you're a credit to the Alenko name." When the younger man saw that his father's approval was genuine, a little bit of life began to creep back into his soul.


	3. Service on the SR1

**_Age 32- Assigned to the _****Normandy**

Kaidan smiled as he looked at the datapad. _SSV Normandy_. Two years ago, his father retired from active duty and was now working groundside in an office at HQ in Vancouver. He proudly told Kaidan to go and "explore all the parts of the galaxy I never got to see." The _Normandy_ was just the ship to do it. He knew this first go round was just a shakedown cruise to see how this jewel of the Alliance fleet would handle, but to not only be assigned to it, but to even be in charge of the crew compliment, stirred a sense of pride in Kaidan that he hadn't felt for himself before in his life. It also made him glad he didn't recognize a single name on the duty roster. His professional veneer would not be scuffed by any of the skeletons he now desperately hid in his closet.

**_Eden Prime_**

Jenkins fell suddenly as the flying drones riddled his body with bullets. Kaidan could barely hear Commander Alandria Shepard curse as his field medic instinct kicked in. He ran to the young corporal's body, quickly realizing there was nothing to save. His mind, hardened with practiced discipline, moved along silently, leaving Jenkins behind. This Commander Shepard was colder than any woman he'd met before. He had heard rumors from Joker about how this woman became who she was. Orphaned at a young age and part of a gang, red sand dealer by her teens, the Butcher of Torfan. He didn't know which of any of those was true, but he felt a familiar tune to her life. One he knew intimately, because it was the same one he'd been playing. A haunting melody of a quiet dissonant solo, occasionally building to a sweeping cacophony of rage and fury, but quickly dying down to a hollow noise of pain and fear. He couldn't help but feel attracted to a woman as broken and dead inside as he.

As the beacon pulled him closer, his mind flooded with raging pictures he couldn't understand. Before he could surrender himself to the inevitable, a giant force knocked him free. He saw Shepard, sacrificing herself for him. A pain pierced his heart as she collapsed. He anguished as she lay still in the medbay. He didn't know if he could bear another life sacrificed for his. He had done nothing good in this life to deserve the chances he received. When she awoke, his heart leapt to his throat. She didn't blame him. He felt free.

**_Feros_**

Kaidan had never opened up to anyone on the ships he'd served on previously; even to the lovers he had taken. With Shepard though, he just couldn't help himself. She came to him just like everyone else, he thought. There was something about the way she spoke to him. He tried to be diplomatic about the Alliance and the Council. But her words voiced his truth; you cannot trust anyone but yourself. Unexpectedly though, that drew him to her. It was like a siren's song calling him away, perhaps to his death, like the old myth read, but her way of death felt like life to him.

**_Virmire_**

Ashley was dead. The truth was as simple as that. He should have been left with the bomb, to explode, to burn, to purify the life he had lived. But Ashley did that. She made the sacrifice. Her life was made good by her last action. Her body was at rest and her soul at peace. Kaidan had none of that.

"Fully functional human being," he had lied to Shepard a few weeks prior. He wasn't, especially as he lost his third meal in a row to guilt. Leaning over the toilet heaving, he could hear Ashley's laughter echoing in his mind. She had a joy for life that transcended her family's undeserved discrimination. She had earned a rich, full life, maybe a husband, children, grandchildren. He had stolen it.

Slumping down against the wall of the bathroom, Kaidan held his side that ached from the patched up wound and the retching. He had humiliated himself with an unusual slip of the tongue, calling Shepard out at the debriefing. Why did she choose to save him? He said it was because of them, their strange bond. Maybe it wasn't so peculiar though. They both had faced death multiple times. But while Kaidan had his life handed to him on the backs of others, Shepard fought for hers by climbing over the weak.

She shouldn't care about him; Kaidan knew that fully well. He also knew he shouldn't care about her. He had once felt open and purposefully vulnerable to her. Now he felt weighed down by the chains of another life cut short that should have been his.

**_Before Ilos_**

Kaidan didn't know what he was looking for when he went into Shepard's quarters. He'd had a lie made up about the duty roster for tomorrow, but when he saw her from behind, her terminal light casting an eerie glow on her skin, he forgot.

He knew they had been dancing around the attraction between them for a while. But after Ash died, what had been unnatural and alarming suddenly became easy and comforting. He had found the nerve to kiss her once while going over the day's assignments in her quarters. The way she reacted was unlike anything he expected. He thought he'd find cold, hard passion, giving of her body, but disconnecting her soul. Instead she showed him a flame that burned within her. She wasn't a ghost like he was, languishing in the purgatory of life. No, she was a phoenix, rising from the ashes of death, more brilliant and spectacular because of the hell she had survived.

He opened his mouth to speak, but with one look at her eyes, the words caught in his throat. As she grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him into a passionate kiss, he could feel his soul finally find rest. He'd found his solace in her. His wandering, restless spirit found its completion in her. "You make me feel human." He could have said he loved her, but those trite words wouldn't have explained the depth of healing she brought to him.

**_After Alchera_**

She had been his savior, now she was his cross of suffering. She was gone. She told him to leave, and he did. His tortured mind played through those last few minutes over and over. He followed orders. He did what he should have done. Had he been 10 years younger, he probably would have told her to shut the fuck up and brought her to an escape pod in a headlock, risking his own life for Joker's. But there were no heroics, only mindless obedience.

He thought his spirit had found its mooring, a safe harbor, in her arms. But now? Now he knew his soul was gone. It burned up with her in the atmosphere over Alchera. He cursed whatever god would hear him all the way back to Earth. The first thing he did when he stepped back onto solid ground was drink himself into oblivion. He prayed she would haunt him because then at least he could see her again.

**A/N: I would not be giving tccarty enough credit for this, if I didn't dedicate it to her. She was the one with the fantastic idea and she's kept me going on it! For some reason, I am so proud of this work...maybe because it's so different.**


	4. After Alchera

**_Age 33- Kaidan's birthday_**

A few weeks after the attack over Alchera, Kaidan had no idea what day it was until his mother called him to wish him well. It was mid-afternoon, and he was wasted as usual. He would hold it together during his intensive counseling sessions the Alliance required the whole remaining _Normandy _crew to undergo. As soon as they were done, his hidden flask of whiskey came out of his pocket. He didn't want to stop drinking, didn't want to let the buzz fade, or else he would have to deal with everything.

He didn't want to admit it to himself and he couldn't admit it to anyone else that his heart was broken. In all his life prior, he hadn't known what real love was. Every kind he had received before was conditional or based on duty, or whatever, they were all cheap imitations. Shepard, as hard as she was on the outside, showed him that he was worthy of love. Him. Kaidan Andrew Alenko. It was absurd. Frustratingly, maddeningly absurd. "Fuck you, Shepard. FUCK. YOU!" he screamed to the specter in his apartment.

His body wracked with sobs, and he swore all the more at himself for letting it get like this.

**_New assignment_**

Staff Commander Alenko. That's what his new title was now. For whatever reason, the Alliance promoted him. It had been eight months since the _Normandy _went down, and Kaidan had learned how to operate on auto-pilot. He didn't smile, he didn't laugh. He only talked when he had to. He would fight when necessary, internally wishing for a chance at whatever it was that stole everything from him. The drinking had stopped, mostly because it just didn't work anymore.

He had learned a long time ago how to just exist, but it was hard to relearn. He cursed Shepard for ever showing him that there was more to life. There was no truth in the ancient saying, "better to have loved and lost." For Kaidan, he would have been content with his existence as it was before her. As he latched his footlocker and prepared to leave for the shipyard, he locked away his memories. He was glad, if he could be glad about anything, that he was a military man. He didn't have to nice or friendly. He would just stay distant.

**_First anniversary_**

Kaidan locked himself in his sleeping pod. Life on the _SSV Manila_ was boring, monotonous. That left too much time to think. Patrolling the traffic to and from a barely inhabited planet rarely had its exciting moments. It wasn't like the _Normandy._ God, he missed her. He could be somewhat normal and interact without cracking the façade he had built now. But no one else knew what today was, and he was relieved to be alone now with his thoughts.

It was hard to believe that just 12 months, 3 weeks and 2 days ago he held her for the first time. He could still smell the acrid scent of eezo that wafted off both of them. His implant site tingled as he remembered how she touched him there like no one else had before. She knew, as a biotic herself, the correct way to stimulate that area. She was supernaturally gorgeous in the light of their biotics, the blue glow of her skin and his. She tasted smooth like the tea she had been drinking, with just a hint of honey. She lit a fire in him that even the icy atmosphere of Alchera could not extinguish, no matter how hard Kaidan tried.

He awoke suddenly, his face wet with tears. She talked about how you couldn't trust anyone but yourself. She was right. Kaidan couldn't even trust _her_ to stay around for him to love her.

**_Age 34- a first date_**

People are surprisingly cordial and even downright friendly to a man who keeps to himself. Kaidan had been serving on the _SSV Leipzig_ for several months now, and despite his best efforts, he struck up a friendship with a few guys on board. One of them had a sister. "She's a doctor on the Citadel, Kaidan," he said. "I wouldn't set her up with just anyone. You're a top-notch guy. Just say yes. I'll be there with my girl. Just drinks, ok?"

Kaidan reluctantly agreed. He knew it had been more than 18 months since…he couldn't bring himself to finish those thoughts anymore. She was gone. The end.

He showed up at the club in civilian clothing. He was tired of his military garb anyway. The woman was beautiful. Her brother definitely downplayed her looks. Kaidan involuntarily smiled when he saw her. She gave him an endearing, crooked smile in return. Maybe he could move on. Maybe it was time to lay Shepard, and their love, to rest.

**_Rumors_**

He thought it was strange to get a message from Admiral Steven Hackett. He hadn't heard directly from him in ages. Kaidan sat down at his terminal, and Hackett started talking about the Collectors. Yes, he had heard of them before, but it was all hearsay. "Our intelligence reports say that Commander Shepard is alive and working for Cerberus. It's possible they are behind the colony abductions. We need you to head to a colony in the Terminus we think is going to be hit next. Horizon."

_Alive?_ The thought burned through everything he thought was true, like fire through a pile of leaves. He couldn't wrap his mind around the illogical nature of that thought. _People don't come back from the dead._ He knew as well as anyone that medical technology was highly advanced, but he was told her body burnt up in the atmosphere. What was left to save? It couldn't be her.

"We want you to be essentially bait for us, Commander Alenko. We do want to protect these colonies, so you will be there officially to help set up an AA gun, but what you are really going to do is draw her out. We know you had a good working relationship with her. She trusted you, and we need to bank on that. Get to the bottom of this, Alenko." Hackett talked like Kaidan and Shepard were just soldiers. He had no idea of the grave he was digging up.

**_Horizon_**

She looked real. She felt real. Hell, she smelled exactly as Kaidan remembered her. Eezo, tea and honey. But something was different, off, about her. The bizarre orange glow emanating from the cracks in her skin made her look like a robotic corpse. It didn't really matter that she was working with Cerberus. In another life, maybe he would have done the same thing, under the circumstances, with the Collectors and all. That was just the excuse he used to get away from her.

He wanted so damn hard to believe that it was actually her. That she was alive and kicking ass somewhere, but he couldn't see past the unearthly creature in front of him. He had seen how Cerberus could destroy, and he was afraid of what they could restore. This wasn't the Shepard he knew, it was a reanimated phantom, and his heart broke again.

And yet, when he returned to the Citadel, his heart burned within him. How many times over the last two years had he bargained with Ashley's god to let him have one more chance to hold Shepard, to feel complete and alive again? If a phantom was the best that god could do, it would be better than the hell he was living now. He turned on his terminal and whipped off a note. Maybe she would get it. Perhaps she would read it.

**_Suicide Mission_**

Hackett said Shepard had been very helpful, executing every assignment he gave her. He said she told him goodbye because they were heading for the Omega 4 relay, and she doubted they would be back. Kaidan listened quietly as the admiral told him her face had healed, but she looked tired and wan. Then Kaidan asked if she said anything about him to the admiral. Hackett looked confused for a second and said no.

If she didn't come back, Kaidan determined his SpecOps students would be fine without him. He would await any news from Alliance intelligence every evening with a drink in one hand and pistol in the other. When the news did come that she had come back and blown up the Alpha relay, he knew she'd have to answer for her actions. To hell with the batarians, Kaidan thought. Ugly bastards got what they deserved. He put the pistol down and toasted the Butcher of Torfan.


End file.
